


Delicate Negotiations

by ashkatom



Series: FBaTNverse [6]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-01
Updated: 2013-07-01
Packaged: 2017-12-16 17:39:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,446
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/864782
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ashkatom/pseuds/ashkatom
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“You are an idiot,” he tells you, in no uncertain terms. Except he then goes on to elaborate on them: “You are the kind of idiot that the dictionary doesn't have words for, because being this inept at romance gets you culled unless you are one of very few outliers, and since I know them all personally and you weren't culled, you cannot possibly be this kind of idiot and I am not putting up with it.”</p>
<p>(or, Sufferer and Dualscar talk about their relationship.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Delicate Negotiations

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Elistanel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elistanel/gifts).



> Birthdayfic for [Choco](http://www.jekunchocobo.tumblr.com). Only _slightly_ late.

You are just going to lay your cards on the table here: being in a relationship with Spin was _easy_. You supplied her with rum, warded her away from any particularly bountiful port towns as the law required you to, and got used to being suffocated by hair during sex. The fact that she then straight-up got you murdered, you chalk up to Red being rather more attractive than you in a legislacerator’s uniform.

Not that you ever tried on the uniform. Or that you are, in any way, attracted to Redglare. _Your point is_ , your last serious relationship was easy, Psi’s happy enough to take the reins of your current kismessitude, and _you do not have the slightest idea of what to do with Suf_.

You’re not even always sure you _should_ do something. Or, you aren’t, until you do a mental tally and realise you can count the number of times Suf initiated pailing on one hand. You’re reasonably sure that it’s not that he doesn’t like pailing, since once he’s there he seems to be having a good enough time. And you’re quite hopeful that it isn’t that he dislikes you, since he seems to like you a whole lot more than he likes Psi sometimes. But now that you’ve noticed it, you can’t un-notice it, and fuck you if you can make any suggestions now that you’re worried he’s not taking them as _suggestions_.

Meanwhile, Suf has started giving you strange looks because usually when he wears his leggings you can’t resist grabbing his ass and you haven’t grabbed his ass in several nights and _what if you are destroying your relationship by not grabbing his ass_.

You need help from somebody who actually knows what the fuck they’re doing, is what you need. Unfortunately, you’re not going to find one of those anywhere on this bubble. Instead you settle for resting your head in Suf’s lap and looking up at him beseechingly, under the impression that at least he might have some idea of what he’s doing with himself.

“You’re staring,” Suf says, and turns the page of the book he was reading before you made your valiant effort to get his attention. “My jaw, while admirable, isn’t that fascinating.”

You stretch out and dangle your feet off the end of the couch. Technically he _can_ run away if he really wants to, but dislodging you is going to be enough effort that he may actually listen to you instead of leaping to conclusions. “I wanted to talk to you about a fin.”

Suf freezes up, which you think might be the only reason he doesn’t drop his book on your face.

“Nofin bad!” you say, although really that might be a lie since you know his attitude regarding talking about things, and in conjunction with your inability to talk without sticking your foot in your mouth this is bound to break down at _some_ point. Still, you choose to maintain hope, even if you can already taste your toes.

“Oh,” Suf says, uncertainly, and settles back a bit. Sometimes you wish he had fins, not because you can’t read him, but because his wide-open signals would be hilarious if he had fins to wave around. Also jangly, because you have already caught him in your jewellery and you’re pretty sure the only reason he’s not already wearing it is that he lacks the appropriate holes in his face.

You sorta lose your train of thought when he digs a hand into your hair and rubs his thumb along the base of one of your horns. It is just this side of pale-pornographic, and only that because you don’t have very sensitive horns.

“Surf,” you say, eyes half-lidded and limbs no longer supporting themselves. “Surrrrrrrf.”

“What?” he says, and if you are not imagining things the pressure on your horn increases.

“That is fighting,” you make a valiant effort and slur out, “fuckin’ _dirty_.”

He tugs on your horn and you go especially loose and floaty, your eyes sliding all the way closed. You are entirely too susceptible to seduction to continue your devotion to this conversation, except this whole ‘being a decent person’ thing is really spoiling that for you. “I am but a poor mutant who knows not of your quadrants, Highblood,” he says, and that drives the point home.

You swat his hand away with a whole lot of regret. “You know all about quadrants,” you point out. “You rant about them all the time.”

“I may have mentioned not following them once or twice,” he says, and flicks your horn.

“Yeah, but you still know-” you cut yourself off because this is _not the topic_ you wanted to be discussing and he is unfairly talented at making you talk about things that weren’t on the agenda. You reach up and pat his face. “Surf.”

“I know,” he says, and slumps. One of his hands finds yours and presses it further against his cheek, which secretly delights you, because you’ve never been sure how much you can touch him, really. Which sounds downright idiotic when you put it like that, but if you do anything wrong by Suf first you will hate yourself, and then his pack will tear you apart and spit on your corpse. “Did you really have to start with the ‘we need to talk’ track?”

“I’m presentin’ it,” you say. “Like a schoolfeedin’ report. Wouldn’t do to dive right in, you gotta do the abstract first-”

He shoves you off the couch.

“-an’ in conclusion, ow, you are incredibly fuckin’ rude,” you inform him. From the _floor_. You roll over and use his feet as the most uncomfortable pillow you have ever had the misfortune to sleep on, and considering that you are a sailor, that is an impressive record. You dredge up memories of your schoolfeeds and all the fuckin’ Imperial reports you had to make every sweep and say, “Observable data shows that the Sufferer is incredibly fuckin’ uncomfortable with talkin’ or thinkin’ about pailing at least one an’ possibly more a’ his matesprits.”

He looks down at you before his eyes slide away. “I don’t think that stalking is admissible data.”

“You’re doin’ it again!” you say, and you certainly did not mean for it to come out so pleading, but you might as well capitalise on the fact. You kneel up and lean on his knees, hold his hands in yours and dig your nails in. “It’s alwaves me that starts things and sometides I fin you’re puttin’ up with me, that you don’t _want_ me,” you say to his knee, because having to say it to his face and see that you’re right about it would probably be fatal. You feel your fins droop as the silence stretches out, and prepare to exit gracefully and become a significant percentage of alcohol, body-wise. _Fuck_.

You are completely unprepared for the Angry Hurt Eyes of Doom, when he yanks your chin up. “You are an idiot,” he tells you, in no uncertain terms. Except he then goes on to elaborate on them: “You are the kind of idiot that the dictionary doesn’t have words for, because being this inept at romance gets you culled unless you are one of very few outliers, and since I know them all personally and you weren’t culled, you cannot possibly be this kind of idiot and I am not putting up with it.”

“Uh,” you say, having been left behind in this path of logic.

He makes the saddest, angriest face. “I have _two_ matesprits,” he says. “If I didn’t want two, it would be a lot easier to have one! This would imply that I am keeping you around because I enjoy your company, strange though the concept may seem.”

“Well, laid out like that,” you say, weakly, in the face of his _fucking deadly guilt-gaze_ as well as his terribly logical argument. Then you rally, because your point still hasn’t been addressed. “Pailin’, though.”

Suf rolls his eyes up and – yeah, he’s counting to ten in his head. “When you grow up with Disciple and Psiionic,” he says, slowly, simply, “it turns out that you never _have_ to initiate things. I am not actually used to spending so much time without somebody convincing me that I should take my pants off.”

You feel yourself flush and don’t even try to salvage it. “Ah,” you say, it being the least stupid thing you can say in the given situation. You get up and sit next to him again, since your dramatic kneeling is no longer necessary, looks ridiculous even for you, and is making your knees hurt. “So on a scale a’ one to ten, how much of an idiot am I?”

Suf is silent for a long time, which is alarming because you didn’t think complex math would have to be involved in calculating your place on the scale. “I’m being unfair,” he says, a grudging admission. “I don’t like talking about…” he trails off, and waves a hand. You make a significantly more obscene gesture since his didn’t really convey anything and almost get shoved back off the couch. Probably best not to mention that you picked that one up from Psi. “Things,” he finishes, with a look that dares you to repeat the gesture.

“Becod a’ not needin’ to,” you ascertain, declining to repeat the gesture.

He finally tosses his book onto the end table for the purpose of having both hands free to cover his face in despair. You are _excellent_ at this quadrant thing. Finally, he says, “Because I never _had_ to. Look, what do you do with a mutant?”

You look away, because you know all too well what you do with a mutant like Suf.

“Right,” he says, the savagery in his voice making you feel guiltier than you already did, which you hadn’t thought possible. “So I went from knowing that if anyone found out about me they would happily cull me and then go off to make breakfast, to being dumped in the middle of two people who care about me more than anything. And they knew me well enough that they knew how deep that particular vein of bullshit ran. So we all just avoided it, and so it became a thing to be avoided.”

You stare at him, because you have run out of words. You’ve never been terrific with quadrants, which is a charitable way of saying that you have single-handedly fucked up every relationship you have been in to date, but even then you were still able to talk. In hindsight, you have a nagging suspicion that talking too much is your problem, which isn’t particularly helpful when you’re thrown together with someone like Suf.

“Sorry,” you say. It sounds inadequate in the silence that has filled the room, crushing down anything else you can think of to say, so you offer your hand and hope that he takes it.

“No, that wasn’t-” He stops, sighs, and takes your hand. Things are at least a little okay, you think. You’re back in Suf-having-too-many-words-and-not-enough-mouths territory, which usually means that things are getting less personal-painful, at least. “I don’t expect you to be able to predict me like someone who’s known me my whole life.”

“I’m workin’ on it,” you assure him. Since he still looks conflicted, like the problem hasn’t been resolved and he is going to chase it down until it admits defeat, you kiss the palm of his hand before saying, “An’ if you want to meet me halfwave, the occashoalnol hint would be appreciated.”

“Okay,” he says, a faint note of suspicion still in his voice. You suspect that if he’s never had to talk with his partners much, he’s not going to be that great at realising when things have been resolved, either. He reaches for his book cautiously, like he’s afraid he’s going to startle you away. When no protest issues forth, he starts reading again, occasionally flicking his eyes from the page to you and back again.

You recline until your head is settled back in his lap and close your eyes. It’s good to know that, for once, you weren’t being incredibly overbearing. This is pretty much the best outcome that you could have hoped for. (The worst outcome was Suf running into the desert and Psi bouncing you off the ceilings for the rest of time).

“Dualscar,” he says, and there’s a strange hesitancy in his voice that makes you crack an eye open to look up at him. From this angle, the book hides his face, but you think that might be by design. You make an encouraging noise and his fingers twitch on the covers of the book before relaxing. “The horn thing,” he says, and falters.

“Yeah?” you say, prepared for an entreaty on how he really doesn’t understand quadrants, because Suf cannot address one issue without addressing all the issues.

“That was a hint,” he says, instead, and you almost choke on your own tongue. He has to thump you on the sternum before you stop coughing, and you may have actually teared up a little by the time you’re done.

“Fuck,” you wheeze, summing up the situation succinctly since you don’t have the breath for a tirade.

“I guess you don’t want to take me up on it,” he says, and you are about to dig your fingers into him and _beg_ when your brain finally kicks in and informs you there was more than a touch of Psi-style smugness in there.  Your brain further informs you that when Psi does it, an argument and then sex usually follow (or the other way around, or concurrently), and – and realising that Psi and Suf are actually very alike is really not doing good damage control here, is what you’re saying.

You don’t think the strategy of sniping back and forth until clothes start coming off is going to be an excellent strategy with Suf, though. Suf has no patience for sniping. He’s more likely to just get up and walk away, thus declaring the topic over. So you shift mental gears, stop thinking about your kismesis because that’s inappropriate, and offer your best winning smile. “I was distracted.”

“Mm, well,” Suf says, and you can hear laughter in that _mmm_ , that _mmm, well,_ is what Dol used to say about your cape and you do not appreciate it. He peers at you over the edge of his book, flattening it against his chest, and you are never letting him near Psi again because that is Psi’s smirk and Psi is a terrible influence and you realise the irony of you saying this _but your bulge is very confused with these proceedings_. “I’m reading,” he says, and props the book back up. Now you can _hear_ the Psi-smirk and it is – _very reluctantly_ – turning you on.

“Readin’,” you say, flatly.

“I tend to,” he says, and turns a page that you are pretty sure does not need to be turned, just for dramatic effect.

A plan formulates itself in your head with almost no input from you, but you think you can go with it. At the very least it might show that you want to – _want to wrap him up and sleep with him and eat with him and breathe his air and pump his blood and smooth away the sharp edges –_ do for him what he does for you.

“Well, don’t let me interrupt,” you say, and sit up. He lowers the book, stricken with horror at how incredulously naive you are, but before he can say anything you slide off the couch and back onto your knees, in front of him. He looks at you, the book slack in his hands, and you magnanimously gesture to it, one eyebrow raised, which you have been informed by reliable sources is the ‘douchiie2t’ thing you do with your face other than ‘open your iill-iinformed maw and have word2 come out.’ It has the desired result of having Suf snatch the book up again with a muttered curse.

You settle your hands on his thighs and feel him jump a little. You look up, expecting him to be looking over the edge of the book anxiously, tracking you, and are surprised when it’s not the case. His fingers are pale from digging into the hardback cover, but other than that he seems perfectly nonchalant. The lie to that is proven when you slide your hands up his thighs and he rocks, minutely, towards you.

_Hints_. You have a feeling that you have unlocked something that is going to crash down over you and drag you deep under the waterline of familiarity. With Suf encouraging you to drown yourself like this, you don’t think you care.

You can’t do much with his pants on – and he is wearing pants, thank fuck, not leggings that are impossible to strip off without overt co-operation – so you take the opportunity to undo his belt, skimming your fingers along the flesh of his stomach before threading your fingers through his belt loops and pulling, insistently. The strip of skin that’s exposed by your actions is enough to start with, and you lick a slow trail along his hipbone, finishing with a kiss on a ticklish spot that makes him jolt.

“Good book?” you ask, pleasantly. Two can play at this game.

“Riveting,” he grinds out, and barely escapes yelping when you slide your hands up his shirt. You do, however, get a choked-back whimper when you find his grubleg scars. You don’t know if he’s sensitive or if it’s the temperature difference, but you usually manage to get a good reaction from him when you skim your hands over them, and right now you are getting far too much enjoyment from watching him do his best to not writhe. From the second groan he tries to stifle, your nook starts pulsing at the feel of him, and the sharp uptick of sex smell in the room is doing its best to override your brain.  You pull at his pants, more demandingly than before, and he lifts himself up long enough for you to take them off, underwear included because you have suddenly lost a lot of patience.

His pants get tossed along the floor, you refusing to turn away from him. He should look silly in just a shirt, but you are entirely too busy being distracted by how long his legs are for such a short person. He resettles himself, pushing his hips forward in the guise of making himself comfortable, and turns another page.

Once this is done you are going to toss that book out the fuckin’ window, you swear.

Confronted by legs and hips and smooth grey flesh and extremely obvious arousal, your mind goes blank. Well, not blank exactly, but you stop thinking and start acting, fully. You run your hands up Suf’s thighs and nudge his knees apart, tightening your grip to make him jerk from the sensation when you’re clasping his inner thighs. His nook is damp enough that you can tell he’s probably as painfully eager as you are, but instead you rest your hands on his hips, pricking his skin as lightly as you can, and duck your head to kiss your way up one of his thighs. His toes curl against the floor, desperate for something to dig into and ground himself with as you make your way up his leg, alternating soft, wet kisses with strokes of your tongue. He has a visible tremor to his leg when you stop at the top of his thigh, barely grazing your lips against his skin.

“Problem?” he asks, voice faint. You don’t fault him for it.

You let out a sound that’s half-moan and half-growl, because you’re not capable of words at the moment, and then bite. Lightly, because your teeth are a fuckin’ weapon and you don’t want this derailed with a highly-embarrassing emergency trip to Dol for magic deathbubble healing. Not even enough to draw blood. But your reward, for nights of careful observation and the conclusion that yeah, he totally likes it when you use teeth, is the first sound he’s openly made the entire time. You can feel your fins perking up in response and press your mouth to his other leg, greedily licking and biting to encourage more sound while the getting’s good.

His toes scrunch up further, the muscles in his legs tense, and you hear the book’s cover squeak as his fingers tighten more on it. He also clamps down on the sounds, which has you making a disappointed groan rather than an encouraging one, but he bonks you in the shoulder with his knee and you get the message. From the sucked-in breath he makes, you don’t think he expected you to actually put his legs over your shoulders, but your shoulder breadth is not insignificant and you think he’ll appreciate not having to stretch around you.

Well, maybe later.

He squeaks and accidentally (you hope) kicks you in the shoulder as you drag him forward, which is completely fuckin’ adorable and proves that you need to do this more often. One of his hands buries itself in your hair in an effort to steady himself, and you wait for him to take it away as you lower your mouth to the lips of his nook, ignoring his unsheathing bulge. Instead he whines a little when you start kissing your way along there instead of getting down to things, and he tugs you forward sharply by the hair. If anyone had told you that you’d be getting wet over a tiny mutantblood fucking your face when you were alive, you would have laughed uproariously and then shot them in the face. Nowadays you’d still want to shoot them in the face, but because the only people who’d say that to you are Psi and Spin, and their default level in your social circle is wanting to shoot them in the face.

You laugh to yourself, quiet enough that just the vibrations transfer themselves to Suf’s flesh, and he arcs his back before pulling your hair again. You go happily and press your tongue into him, your hands on his hips locking him into place as you flick your tongue in search of the spot that made him straight-up wail the last time you did this. When you judge the timing right, you flick your eyes up to perform a little-

-only to see him still holding the book. You have to be fucking _kidding_ , you are done, this is the moment you are flipping black for this stupid pitiful idiot. As if he knows you’re fuming, he looks over the book again and _he does your eyebrow-raisy thing_ , you are going to shred that book and toss it _in the lake_.

Maintaining the eye contact, you press yourself up against him, squeeze his thighs, and flutter your tongue against your best guess of where that spot was. His eyes close as he moans and you flip back into red at the vulnerability and trust as his death grip on your hair loosens, drawing an answering moan out of you. Still, you press your advantage, grabbing him by the ass so you can pull him further onto your tongue and thrusting so he doesn’t stop making the sounds that go straight down your spine and into whatever nerve cluster exists between your bulge and nook. You can feel your own pants sticking to you as you rock back and forth with the motions of showing Suf a good time and it’s just enough to drive you mad, combined with the feedback from Suf and the feel of him, almost too warm against you. You want to touch yourself but taking your hands away from him is not an option.

He starts rolling his hips with you, desperately trying to match the thrusts of your tongue with little whimpers that you can’t help answering. His bulge, fully unsheathed now, does its best to give you a hornjob, but you are beyond caring about anything past the sticky pull on your thighs and the taste of Suf flooding your tongue. His hand – his _free_ hand, fuckin’ book – wanders to the back of your head, and you let him set the pace without protest. Your face is covered in sex gunk and your jaw is getting tired and you are utterly, blissfully beyond protest. It’s only when his moaning starts coming in breaths that you realise that he’s about to come, and you have to take one hand away from him and prop him against the couch with your shoulder to flail a bucket into place. It is one of your better attempts at not letting your partner fall off whatever you have them pinioned against and you resolve to rub it in Psi ‘I have magical brain powers that don’t need physics’ Captor’s face.

The sound of the bucket hitting the floor triggers something in Suf and he curls around you, his legs tightening around your head to the point of suffocation. One day you are going to get him into the water and not have to worry about breathing and it will be awesome, but today is not that day. You’re inclined to not care though, since while you are suffocating, there are worse things to suffocate in. His rhythm is thrown off by his orgasm as he stutters against you and you do your best to ride it out, relaxing him with long, gentle licks through the aftershocks. Your own need is still there, but feels dulled and dreamlike as Suf unwinds himself from around you and flops back into the couch.

“Good book?” you ask, with just a touch of smug topped off with exhaustion as you nod to the book he is still inexplicably holding open with one hand.

Suf rolls his eyes to the ceiling before replying, “Adequate. Enough hinting?”

You grab the book and toss it across the room before kissing him to silence the protests of, “My page!”

\--

You don’t do matespritship well. You feel awkward with how conciliatory it sometimes seems and where are the boundaries and how do you treat someone you pity as an equal – in or out of bed – and somehow, when you’re wrapped up with Suf after a shower and a hasty application of mop to floor, you think you’ve finally found someone who gets it even less than you do, and that’s somehow reassuring. You can be oblivious together.


End file.
